The Box
by katz7777777
Summary: Lucy is a Residence Advisor (RA) living in the same building as her friend Natsu who shows up to the building with a strangely large cardboard box one day, and being as nosy as she is Lucy won't let it lie. Though it's contents were definitely not what she was expecting.


**A/N: So I found this story from a prompt on tumblr and it kinda wrote itself, I'm not overly fond of it but it's probably better than my other work that I haven't read in a while, plus it feels super short... Anyways, I hope you enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail of any of the characters mentioned in this story**

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"Natsu, what's in the box?" The blonde questioned as she watched a head of pink hair walk precariously down the hall towards his designated room, the large box in question clutched tightly to his chest as though it were something precious.

The only response she got was a mumbled grunt of acknowledgment as the other passed her in the cramped residence halls, all of his energy seeming to be used to keep his focus on the box and it's contents. The blonde, slightly irked from being ignored and more than slightly curious now, chose to instead follow the other. Her English class could wait a little longer.

"Natsu, can you hear me? What's in the box?" She repeated hoping the other would actually grace her with a response this time, but instead all she got was a frustrated grumble when the idiot nearly managed to trip over thin air and slightly jostled the contents of the mysterious cardboard.

It wasn't until Natsu abruptly stopped in the middle of the hall, causing his follower to crash headfirst into his back, that he finally acknowledged her presence.

"Hey! Watch where you're- Oh, hey Luce!" Lucy almost laughed at the abrupt change in tone when the other noticed it was actually his RA walking behind him, not just some straggler who managed to disrupt his concentration.

"Nice of you to finally notice." Lucy said, still slightly peeved that she had been ignored, but that was quickly stifled by her need to know what the usually exuberant Natsu was doing so calmly and she was sure it had to do with whatever he was bringing into the residence. "So, what's in there?"

Natsu turned his gaze to the box in question and took a quick side glance at the blonde before flashing a large and noticeably nervous smile at the other "Oh, it's nothing important, just school supplies!"

"School Supplies?" The blonde questioned more to herself than the other, and while she knew that the lying abilities of Natsu Dragoneel were poor she also knew that he wouldn't do it without good reason, which inevitably made her more curious about the contents of a box he felt the need to hide from her.

"Don't you have class right now Luce?" Natsu asked nervously, drawing Lucy from her reeling imagination of hidden possibilities and reminding her of the English class she was going to now be late to.

"Shit…" She muttered as she checked the time on her phone, 5 minutes to make it across campus, she could do it if she ran, "Thanks Natsu, see you later!"

"No problem Luce!" The other beamed as she booked it down the hallway, hoping that her professor wouldn't lock the classroom doors this week.

She thought she might have heard a relieved sigh as she turned the corner, but decided to file that away for later analysis, she had a lecture to make.

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If Natsu thought he had escaped Lucy's questioning he was in for s surprise, because the residence advisor had thought the problem through her entire creative writing course and been unable to focus, leading to much distress when the professor assigned a paper due at the end of the week, but that wasn't important right now. Right now the blonde was walking with a purpose to her friends room, and if he didn't tell her what was in the box she was going to figure it out for herself.

She stopped purposefully in front of his door and took a second to compose her excitement into a casual smile before knocking to get the others attention. If she knew Natsu's schedule well enough by now he should have the day off of his third year courses, meaning he was either in his room or visiting his friend gray off campus.

The sudden crashing and stifled curses informed her that he was indeed here, and she smiled a little in victory to herself as she waited for the other to open the door. Moments later a frazzled looking Natsu opened the door no more than a head wide as his face came into view and immediately froze when he saw who was standing on the other side.

"Hi Natsu, what's up?" Lucy smiled, wishing nothing more than to fully open the door but knowing she could work her way into the room if needed.

"Oh, hey Luce… Nothing much…" The other laughed nervously, quickly trying to glance behind her from his restricted position, and seemed to relax at finding there was no one there, "What brings you here?

"It's nothing really, just wanted to talk, is it okay if I come in?" The blonde quickly slipped into a beaming smile that had a tendency of winning over people, his excitement usually only increased by the expression of her own, though this time it seemed to only make him more nervous.

"It's a complete disaster in here!" Natsu rambled off, seeming to scramble for words of other excuses before the blonde stepped forward and cut him off.

"I'm sure it's fine, after the number of times you've barged into my room I can think it's only fair." A slight look of despair crossed the others face before he reluctantly opened the door only to quickly pull the other in and shut it tight behind her.

The blonde would have been surprised at the sudden movement if the opened box in the middle of the pink haired male's room didn't immediately catch her attention.

"Natsu! Is this what you were hiding in that box?" Lucy nearly shouted, more in surprise than anything, but a large hand came up to cover her mouth.

"Not so loud Luce! People could hear you and take him away from me!" The other frantically stage whispered.

"But it's against the rules!" She mumbled out through his hand, and slowly pulled it away as a confirmation that she would speak quietly, "You know you can't keep it."

"I know I'm not supposed to, but look at him, he's so cute! I can't just throw him away!" The other tried to argue desperately, already seeming to have formed an emotional attachment to the creature dwelling in the glass aquarium.

"Natsu, it's a hermit crab, it's still a pet and those aren't allowed in residence, if they find out about this I could lose my job!" Though the blonde had to admit it was a little adorable, it had crawled over it's food bowl to the side of the tank to watch the two arguing with interest.

"No, I'm not letting you take Happy away from me!" The other nearly shouted, moving to block the door as if she were going to run off to the board and tell them immediately, separating her friend and his new crustacean 'Happy'.

Lucy looked over at the small creature that was still watching it's owner and could understand why Natsu had become so enamoured with such a small creature, it was quite adorable even if they weren't supposed to have pets on campus. The blonde turned to the still frantic Natsu at the door and was going to say something to that effect when she noticed the paint coating his arms and shirt.

"Natsu, why are you covered in paint?"

Natsu looked down at his shirt in surprise and laughed at himself before scratching the back of his head embarrassedly and beaming at the other, "I'm painting old shells."

The blonde looked around the room and found that there were indeed paint supplies and a collection of smaller shells scattered on his desk, and wasn't even slightly surprised that Natsu would be the kind to cover not only himself but also most of the desk in coloured acrylics.

"You can paint one if you want." He suggested quietly, having finally moved from the defensive position of the room door to watch the blonde with amusement as she was fixated on the paint supplies littered around his room.

"Really?!" The blonde asked excitedly, forgetting how long it had been since she delved into a proper art project, and moved over to his desk quickly taking up one of the unpainted shells. It wasn't long before she was already picking out colour schemes and designing intricate lines on the shape and she completely forgot she was in Natsu's room with his technically illegal hermit crab roommate, until the latter decided to make an appearance next to her hand.

"Natsu!" Lucy nearly jumped out of the chair when suddenly the man in question was beside her, holding his small creature close to his body as if frightened she's accidentally swat him away in her freight.

"Happy just wanted to come say hi!" The pink haired male beamed before slowly placing the eager hermit crab onto a sectioned off part of his desk that managed to be clear of the numerous paint splatters. Lucy could only be surprised at the movements of the crustacean, the little being almost embodied the meaning of it's name as it wandered curiously through the area, occasionally turning to look up at it's owner and company before clambering on it's way again.

Lucy normally would have blushed when Natsu suddenly grabbed her hand, but she was so surprised by the movement towards the fascinating creature that she couldn't even bring herself to make a noise when her hand was below the feet of Happy, and he was now wandering across her and Natsu's palms as his adventure continued.

The two of them laughed when the small creature was startled back into it's shell by Natsu's sudden change in position, but it wasn't long before he was back out and Natsu had to finally return the creature to the tank that he would now call Happy's home.

"So what did you make?" Natsu asked when the hermit crab had been returned, Lucy having totally forgot about her little art project in lieu of playing with the new residential pet.

"I made a shell for you…" The blonde laughed shyly when presenting her almost dry masterpiece, the originally white shell covered in flames of red and orange, making it look like the shell itself was being consumed by heat, "Reminds me of your first week in res."

The originally impressed Natsu suddenly dropped his expression to a defensive one when recollecting the smoke alarm he had set off that week, "That was Gray's fault! He told me it would be okay!"

Lucy could only laugh at the rivalry between the two friends as she leaned back and placed the shell on the table with the rest of the drying pieces of art that Natsu had created.

"This one's beautiful Natsu, did you make it?" The blonde had picked up a particularly pastel pink coloured shell, the art obviously finely detailed, which was much different than the rest of the scattered shells. Lucy was too infatuated with the shell to notice the light blush that had overtaken the others face.

"Ah, you can have it if you want, I don't really need it." Natsu said while smiling, trying to rid himself of the light colour the still dusted his face.

"Seriously? Oh thank you Natsu, I love it." Lucy could't even draw her eyes away from the art to notice that all of the Natsu's attempts to stifle the colour on his face backfired and he was 10 shades of red.

"You can't tell anyone about Happy now though, you're my partner in crime, you played with him too!" Natsu beamed, proud of himself for coming up with what he would deem an ingenious idea to keep the other quiet.

Lucy simply laughed at the others excitement at winning this battle, knowing all to well that she could never separate her overjoyed friend and his hermit crab counterpart.

"Only if I get to come over to feed him once a week." The blonde turned to smile smugly at the other, making a deal that would let her not only see the entertaining crustacean but give her chance to hang out with it's equally entertaining owner without needing a better excuse.

"Deal!" Natsu beamed, obviously excited to get to keep his newfound pet because he rushed over to the pets home and excitedly told him that he would 'get to stay here now' and that the 'nice lady would come feed him sometimes', that they had 'won over the RA'.

Not that Lucy would ever tell him, but that boy had won her over a long time ago, and even if she tried she wouldn't be able to part him from the little bundle of joy that he had so appropriately named Happy.

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**A/N: It's been a while since I've posted anything :) Feel free to let me know if anything's wrong, this story is really choppy cause it wanted to be so much longer but I cut it down to the bare bones, I guess if people like the idea I'll post the whole thing as I write it... Thanks for reading till the end!**

**~Katz7777777**


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